Housing

The academic discipline of Housing is described as study of how society meets the accommodation needs of households. Housing is related to the field of Real Estate Management, which is concerned with fitting the supply of real estate to the demand for real estate. At Delft, the latter discipline concentrates primarily on accommodating organisations and means of production. The field of Housing comprises different levels of aggregation, from the macro level (comprising housing stock, the market for housing and housing construction, housing systems and housing policy at regional, national and international levels) to the micro level (comprising housing estates, building blocks, individual dwellings and housing facilities, and the behaviour and wishes of individual occupants, housing developers and housing managers).

The mission of the academic discipline of Housing within the wider field of Architecture is to contribute to the realisation of a sustainable housing stock by the development and dissemination of knowledge in this field. The transformation of the housing stock is an important and extensive social problem that forms the major part of the task of urban redevelopment. In addition, sustainable renewal of the housing stock is of great importance for the achievement of the targets set for limitation of the environmental load caused by society. Various questions may be posed in connection with the task of housing transformation. Firstly, in relation to the product, what is a sustainable housing stock, what do sustainable dwelling environments look like and how can the sustainability of the existing housing stock be increased? Secondly, in relation to the process, how can the actors who play a role on the housing market contribute to fulfilment of the transformation task, and how can the transformation process be improved e.g. by adequate organisation, cooperation and regulations. These questions are explored by the various chairs in the field of Housing from different perspectives:

• The socio-economic perspective i.e. the ways in which and the instruments with which the housing stock is adapted to meet the wishes and requirements of the households concerned to realize a sustainable market position.
• The environmental perspective, focusing on how the housing stock is adapted to meet various environmental requirements e.g. in the fields of energy, water and health.
• The management perspective i.e. how the transformation process is controlled by private actors such as professional housing managers.
• The governance perspective i.e. how the transformation process is controlled by public actor such as the various levels of government.

The research on Housing is embedded within two research programmes:
1. Housing Systems which researches how various actors can respond pro-actively to future developments in the housing market, how to identify the needs of the housing consumer, how to ensure that the housing market continues to be affordable and accessible for vulnerable groups and how comparative analyses of European housing systems can be used to support changes in the Dutch housing system. The department of Real Estate & Housing currently contributes to Housing Systems with a research project on Shrinking Cities that is conducted by Drs. André Mulder.

2. Sustainable Housing Transformations which researches how the housing stock is or should be transformed to increase its sustainability and how various actors on the housing market (can) contribute to the sustainability of the housing stock. The programme encompasses both new construction and the existing housing stock, with an emphasis on policy, processes, instruments and the actors in the housing market, and with special attention for quality, process innovation and model development, management and testing.

Both programmes are conducted in close cooperation with the OTB Research Institute. Most of the Real Estate & Housing research on housing is embedded within the Sustainable Housing Transformations programme. Our research is centered around two chairs:
  - Sustainable Housing Transformation
  - Housing Management

For a description of the Housing Systems programme we refer to www.sua.tudelft.nl.